


In Bloom

by sinchun



Series: NCT Life in a Pack [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Discussions of sex, Gen, M/M, Mark Lee (NCT)-centric, Minor Kunten, Polyamorous Pack, and you wouldn’t really be wrong, implied markwoo, mating cycles are heavily discussed, minor yuwoo, side dotae - Freeform, you can interpret Mark as having a crush on just about any of the others
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:00:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27944945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinchun/pseuds/sinchun
Summary: Mark is a late bloomer. His teens pass without him presenting, and honestly, he’s beginning to get a little anxious about it. The rest of the pack does their best to comfort and reassure him, until finally, he presents.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung & Mark Lee, Kim Jungwoo & Mark Lee (NCT), Mark Lee & Nakamoto Yuta, Mark Lee (NCT) & NCT Ensemble, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: NCT Life in a Pack [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2043016
Comments: 4
Kudos: 126





	In Bloom

**Author's Note:**

> “Lead,” the first fic in this series, isn’t necessary to understand this story, but it is a short read that provides some background on the AU.

Mark is a late bloomer.

His teens pass without him presenting, and honestly, he’s beginning to get a little anxious about it. He watches as Jeno and Jaemin both present in 2017. Haechan presents in 2018. It’s 2019, and Renjun presents, but Mark still hasn’t. When is it going to be _his_ turn?

 _I’m twenty years old and still haven’t presented,_ he thinks miserably. Over the years, their pack has grown to a size of twenty-one, and the only pups left are Chenle, Jisung, and him.

The older members tell him not to worry about it, which Mark thinks is easy for them to say when they’ve all presented and are having fun with each other. It’s not that he’s jealous of the casual way so many of his packmates slip in and out of each other’s beds, per se; he just thinks it would be nice to at least be given the opportunity to join in. But his unpresented status leaves him excluded.

* * *

“You really shouldn’t stress about it,” Ten tells him.

They’re sitting together in the living room that ostensibly belongs to WayV, though they’ve gotten much looser about dividing the dorms by sub-unit over the years. Mark is currently avoiding his own dorm, unable to deal with the unabashed flirtations between Taeyong and Doyoung or the fact that he’s pretty sure Jungwoo is helping Yuta through his rut as they speak.

“I just wish people would stop babying me, just because I haven’t presented yet,” he grumbles.

“Everyone presents in their own time,” says Ten soothingly.

Mark scowls. “Easy for you to say! You presented when you were sixteen.”

“You’re still only twenty,” Ten points out.

Refusing to be mollified, Mark wails, “Lucas told me that Yangyang presented when he was fifteen! What’s _wrong_ with me?”

“Baby, you are being ridiculous,” says Ten, managing to sound annoyed and amused all at once. “There’s no cause for you to be so concerned about not having presented yet.”

“Is, uh, is everything okay?”

Mark’s loud lamentations have caught Kun’s attention, and the alpha now stands awkwardly in the doorway of the living room. He looks like he’s deciding between entering the room to provide moral support and leaving to give them privacy.

Ten makes the decision for him, beckoning Kun to join them with some term of endearment that Mark doesn’t understand but thinks is in Mandarin. “Please tell this baby to stop stressing out about presenting,” says Ten with an exaggerated eye roll.

“There’s nothing wrong with being a late bloomer,” Kun tells Mark earnestly. “You’re still normal.”

Mark looks at the tender way Ten leans into Kun. It’s barely been a month since the two have given each other mating bites, and they’re still in the honeymoon period, even though they’ve been involved for near on two years now. Mark sighs. “I just hate feeling left out,” he says.

Ten, ever ready to pounce on the opportunity to gossip, wiggles his eyebrows and asks, “Ooh? Is there anyone in particular who you feel sad about being left out from?”

“No!” Mark denies hotly, feeling his cheeks redden. He’s not even lying, but he can tell from the entertained glances that Ten and Kun exchange that they don’t believe him. “It’s just… everyone!”

“Everyone?” asks Kun. His brow creases in concern.

Mark blushes even harder. “I mean, it feels like everyone is always, you know—”

“Fucking?” Ten supplies crudely.

“—and I hate that it’s not even an option for me, just because I haven’t presented yet,” finishes Mark, determined to ignore Ten’s goading.

Kun smiles, eyes kind. “That sounds very frustrating,” he says sympathetically. “I’m sure if you brought it up with Taeyong-hyung, he’d ask everyone to tone it down around you.”

Mark shakes his head. “I don’t want to make people feel like they can’t be… affectionate with each other because of me,” he says with a sigh.

“Okay, but how obvious is it that Doyoung wants Taeyong claim him?” asks Ten, happy to turn the conversation away from Mark’s personal woes and onto more salacious subjects. “He’s asked for Taeyong for how many of his heats in a row now, hmm?”

“Ten, don’t be rude!” Kun admonishes and swats at his mate with no real malice, but Mark doesn’t mind the change in topic.

“I’ll eat my hat if they don’t give each other claiming bites by the end of the year,” he mumbles. He hopes they do. He’s getting tired of watching the two of them dance around each other. He doesn’t remember Yuta and Jaehyun being this weird back when they were regularly sleeping together, but maybe he just wasn’t paying enough attention.

Ten cackles. “Wanna take bets on how long it will take?” he asks.

Kun swats him a second time. “We are _not_ taking bets on our friends’ sex lives!”

“Aw, you’re no fun,” pouts Ten.

“Aw, you still love me anyways,” replies Kun cheekily.

Ten’s eyes soften and he murmurs, “Yeah. Yeah, I do.”

“Oookayyyyyy!” Mark exclaims loudly and gets to his feet. “I think maybe I’ll head back to my own dorm.”

“Wait, no, come back! We were just kidding about being in love!” calls Ten, laughing.

Mark’s only response is to cheerfully flip him off on his way out the door. Back in his dorm, he’s relieved to discover that he can’t hear any telltale noises of sexual shenanigans coming from the room he shares with Yuta, but when he sees every single one of his housemates in the common space, except for Yuta and Jungwoo, he wonders if his roommate’s rut might not be over yet.

 _If I had presented, I’d be able to tell from the smell,_ he knows. Trying ignore the bitter twisting in his stomach, he throws himself down on the couch in between Haechan and Taeyong. The two alphas have some complicated-looking video game booted up on the TV.

“Do you want in next game?” asks Haechan.

Mark doesn’t even know what game they’re playing, but he nods anyways. “Yeah, sure.”

Doyoung’s gaze is sympathetic as he looks at Mark from where he’s curled up in an armchair. “Is everything okay, Mark?” he asks. “You seem a little…” He trails off and makes a shaky gesture with his hand.

“I’m just tired,” Mark replies. He feels a little bad for lying. Something in his chest squalls at him for misleading Doyoung, who is nurturing and sweet and precious—an omega. But at the moment, he can’t bring himself to dig back into all of his disgruntlement over the fact that he still hasn’t presented.

His thoughts are interrupted by Taeyong groaning as Haechan wins whatever game they’re playing, then Haechan is pushing a controller into Mark’s hands and telling him the rules in a rapid-fire explanation than Mark can't really follow.

No one is less surprised than Mark when he ends up losing.

He sighs and sets aside the controller. “Does anyone know if it's safe for me to go my room, or are Yuta and Jungwoo still…?” he asks the other three. He’s always been shy when it comes to talking about sex, but maybe that’s just because he’s never had it.

“Might want to give Yuta another day for his rut,” says Taeyong apologetically. He shared a room with Yuta for three years, up until this most recent move, so he’s well-versed in the ins and outs of the other alpha’s rut cycle.

Mark sighs again. He’s pretty much over sleeping on the couch, but he wouldn’t dare to interrupt Yuta’s rut. A thought occurs to him, and he turns to give Doyoung the best puppy dog eyes he can manage. “Hey, hyung,” he calls sweetly. “Can I take a nap in your room? It’s not like Jungwoo is using his bed right now.”

Doyoung tilts his head to the side as he thinks about it, his tongue peaking out from his lips, and Mark is momentarily struck by how pretty he is. Evidently, he isn’t the only one who thinks so, because Taeyong gets up from the couch to prod at Doyoung until the other man shifts to let him sit in the armchair with him. Taeyong wraps his arms around Doyoung, and Mark has to resist the urge to avert his eyes when they languidly being to scent each other.

Somehow it always seems so much more intimate when it’s the two of them.

Making a satisfied noise as Taeyong noses against his neck, Doyoung says to Mark, “Sure, go ahead and take a nap.”

Mark thanks him, then scampers off to Doyoung and Jungwoo’s room. As he shuts the door behind him, he belatedly realizes that maybe Taeyong purposefully started cuddling Doyoung in order to put the omega in a good mood so that he’d agree to Mark’s request. _That was kind of him_ , he thinks blearily and collapses onto Jungwoo’s bed.

The mattress is soft, covered in a collection of animal plushies that Mark has always found endearing. The sheets smell faintly of laundry detergent, and as Mark slips into sleep, he finds himself wondering what it would smell like to him—Jungwoo's scent—if he were presented.

* * *

A week later, Mark is still fixated on his unpresented status. Though everyone is kept busy between dance practice and recording sessions, the moment they have any downtime, Mark finds himself thinking about it.

He wonders if he’ll be an alpha, a beta, or an omega—or worse, what if he never presents at all? It’s an irrational fear, he knows, but the worry still strikes at him.

On one of their free days, he finds himself alone in the dorm, the rest of his housemates having gone out somewhere. He could go hang out in one of the pack’s other three dorms, but sometimes it’s nice to have space to himself. It so rarely happens.

He takes an extra long shower, then hangs out in the common space in nothing but his boxers. For about an hour, he feels like king of the world!

Then the sound of keys jangling in the lock informs him that he’s about to have company, and Mark only has has about thirty seconds to regret not even putting a shirt on before Jungwoo waltzes in with a bag of convenience store goodies. He pauses when he sees Mark on the couch, but blessedly doesn’t comment on his clothing—or lack thereof. Instead, he just holds up his bag with a smile and asks, “Want a Sprite?”

“Uh, thanks, yeah,” replies Mark, fighting the urge to wrap his arms around his bare chest.

Jungwoo sits on the couch next to him and hands him a Sprite can. “I take it no one else is back yet?” he asks, taking a sip of his own soda.

Mark laughs awkwardly. “Not yet,” he tells Jungwoo.

“Can’t blame them. It’s a nice day out,” says Jungwoo. With a contented sigh, he shifts closer to Mark, then leans his head on his shoulder.

Immediately opening his arms to let Jungwoo snuggle into him, Mark admits, “I’m pretty sure Haechan is just playing video games over at the Dream dorm.”

“Mmm, he doesn’t know what he’s missing out on,” says Jungwoo quietly. He brushes his fingertips down Mark’s back, and Mark shivers.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

Jungwoo coos at him. “I get to hog all these Markie cuddles for myself. Our precious pup.”

Irritation washes over Mark. As if he needed another reminder that he hasn’t presented yet, thank you very much. But then he realizes that hey, maybe this a good opportunity to get some answers to questions he’s been too embarrassed to ask before now. Before he can chicken out, he makes himself ask, “What’s it like to go into heat?”

“Hot,” Jungwoo replies bluntly, then laughs. “I mean, it’s called heat for a reason. Your body gets all warm and, you know, starts producing slick.”

“I know _that_! I had sex ed classes growing up. I meant, like… what’s it like, mentally?” asks Mark.

Jungwoo sits up to give him a look. “Well, you get really, really horny. Like, _I-think-I’m-going-to-die-if-someone-doesn’t-touch-me-right-now_ levels of horny,” he says, “but that’s true of rutting too.”

Mark blushes. “But there’s a difference in the type of horniness, right?” he asks.

“Oh, sure. When I’m in heat, I get frantic to get knotted,” Jungwoo says frankly. “I doubt that’s how it goes for rutting.”

His blush deepening, Mark manages to ask, “What’s it like to get knotted?”

“Like the best sex ever. _Way_ more satisfying than when you’re not in heat.”

Mark guesses that makes sense. His next question: “Does it ever hurt?”

“Mmm, sometimes a little bit,” answers Jungwoo. He runs a hand through his hair— _Soft,_ notes Mark idly—as he thinks about it. “Especially the first time. But Lucas was so gentle with me.”

“Are… are other alphas… or betas… less gentle?” asks Mark haltingly. He knows that Jungwoo has slept with his fair share of packmembers.

It’s long been an unspoken rule in their pack that the omegas can ask for whoever they want during their heats and that they’ll be accommodated. There aren’t many omegas in the pack, and their biology makes everyone else want to attend to their every need. _Spoiled rotten,_ Haechan had once teasingly accused Doyoung of being.

Jungwoo giggles. “I mean, sometimes it’s nice when it’s not as gentle,” he tells Mark. “Like when Jaehyun—”

“Please, don’t,” Mark interrupts. He does _not_ want to hear any of the lurid details about whatever rough sex Jungwoo may have had with Jaehyun.

Undeterred, Jungwoo says, “Oh, Yuta is really good in bed too. He _knows_ what he’s doing. There’s a reason I’ve asked for him for my past few heats, you know?” He waggles his eyebrows at Mark.

And Mark is trying really, really hard not to imagine Yuta and Jungwoo in bed together. “Please, don’t,” he repeats weakly.

“Hah, sorry,” says Jungwoo, sounding not sorry at all. “I guess the point I was going to make was that it’s nice to have someone… experienced for your first heat.”

 _Yeah, that makes sense,_ thinks Mark. He can’t imagine being asking any of the dreamies to help him through his first time. _That’d just be a big load of awkward._

“But you shouldn’t be so worried about it,” Jungwoo says brightly and goes back to cuddling him. “When you present, your biology will know what to do.”

The next night, Mark is still thinking about his conversation with Jungwoo. He finds himself flustered when Yuta returned to their shared room after taking a shower, his bathrobe hanging loosely on his lean frame. _Don’t be weird,_ he chides himself, then finds himself opening his mouth anyways: “Hey, hyung?”

“Hmm?” replies Yuta, distracted as he digs around in his dresser for a pair of pajama pants.

“If I end up being an omega…” Mark fiddles with the strings of his hoodie, can’t bring himself to look at Yuta. He can feel his face going red. “Will you help with my first heat if I end up being an omega or beta?” he asks in a quiet rush.

“Mark…” Yuta’s voice is soft and sympathetic, and it sounds too much like a rejection.

Embarrassment rushes through Mark. He scrambles for the door. “Sorry! Forget I asked!” he blurts, but Yuta catches him with a gentle hand on his arm.

“Mark, no. I’m… I feel so flattered that you trust me enough to ask that,” says Yuta, pulling him into a hug. “But you don’t understand. I can’t make that promise. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be happy to help you. But first heat is an unpredictable thing. I might not be around, or you might find that you want someone else.”

Mark tries to imagine wanting someone else. It’s not that he doesn’t trust the other members of the pack, but his friendship with Yuta has always been special. And he knows that Yuta has helped more than one of the others through their first heats, so he’s experienced. _And Jungwoo said he’s really good in bed,_ Mark thinks, before immediately pushing the thought away.

Logically, he recognizes that Yuta is right—that when the time comes, his biology might drive him to ask for Taeyong, who is the pack’s lead alpha after all, or for one of the betas, or that he might never go into heat at all if he presents as an alpha himself. “Still,” he says. His voice is muffled by Yuta’s shoulder, they are pressed so closely together. “If I go into heat… and you’re around… and I want you… would you help me?”

Yuta kisses the top of his head. “Of course,” he assures him. “I would be honored.”

* * *

They joke a lot about Taeyong and Doyoung being the pack parents, but Mark can’t deny that when he has a problem, his first instinct is to go one of the two to ask for advice. Today, he wants Taeyong’s insights. When he goes to the room that their leader shares with Haechan, he finds only the latter.

“Try, uh, try Doyoung and Jungwoo’s room,” suggests Haechan. “But make sure you knock first.”

Mark makes a face. “I’m not gonna interrupt Doyoung-hyung’s heat,” he says, but Haechan shakes his head.

“He’s not,” he says and taps his nose—a reminder that Mark’s the only one in the dorm who can’t pick up on all the extra information passed along through scent. “They’ve just been extra cuddly these days for whatever reason.”

 _How obvious is it that Doyoung wants Taeyong to claim him?_ thinks Mark amusedly, echoing what Ten had said two weeks prior.

He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised, not really, when Taeyong is the one who answers his knock on Doyoung and Jungwoo’s door. “Hey, Mark,” the leader greets him with a warm smile. “If you’re looking for Jungwoo, I think he’s out right now.”

“I was looking for you, actually. Is it okay if I come in?” asks Mark.

“Oh, sure, of course.” Taeyong opens the door wider, revealing a sleepy-looking Doyoung wrapped in a blanket on his bed, and beckons him in.

Mark takes a seat at Jungwoo’s desk. Snagging one of the plushes from Jungwoo’s bed, he toys nervously with it and tries not to stare at Doyoung’s neck. The creamy skin is marred with hickeys, and Mark thanks whatever powers may be that they don’t have any upcoming promotions scheduled because their managers would be beyond pissed if they had to worry about covering up those dark bruises. _Taeyong might as well have put a claiming bite on him,_ he thinks, a smile twisting on his face despite himself.

“What’s on your mind?” asks Taeyong, and Mark has to bite his tongue to stop himself from answering, _Hickeys._

“Did you know you were going to be an alpha before you presented?” he asks instead, then clarifies, “I mean, I know that you couldn’t have known for certain, but… did you have a feeling about it?”

Taeyong laughs. “I didn’t, not really,” he says. “I was never the tallest or the strongest or the most aggressive kid, but those are just stereotypes. Being alpha isn’t about brute force. It’s about providing for your pack and protecting them. I didn’t understand that until I presented.”

Mark guesses that makes sense. He hugs Jungwoo’s plushie, a baby blue shark with a cutesy embroidered face, then turns to Doyoung. “What about you, hyung?” he asks. “Did you suspect you were going to be an omega?”

Doyoung smiles wryly, shifts in his bed, and Mark has to glance away quickly to avoid looking at the red, raw marks revealed by his oversized tee-shirt slipping off one shoulder. “Yeah, I had thought, or maybe just _hoped_ , that I was going to be an omega, but I don’t think it was for the correct reason,” he answers, and his voice says that there’s a deeper story there—one that Mark won’t get out of him today.

He’s known both of them since before they presented, but that was so long ago and there’s always so much going on in their lives. Mark doesn’t think he really has any clear memories of what either of them were like when they were still pups. He buries his nose into the soft side of the shark plushie and tries to remember when Doyoung presented, but all his brain can come up with was that it was right after Jaehyun had presented and that Doyoung had been covered in bruises for days after his first heat ended.

 _I guess some things never change,_ Mark thinks drolly and lets his gaze trail over Doyoung’s well-hickeyed neck.

* * *

All of the betas in 127 live together, and so Mark finds himself heading to their dorm as he continues his quest to quell his anxiety over presenting. Johnny greets him with a big smile, somehow always reassuring even he doesn’t know that Mark is seeking reassurance. Winwin is the only other one at home, so the three of them sit around the dining table while Mark works up the courage to ask about what it was like to present as a beta.

“What’s eating you?” asks Johnny gently, and that’s all the push Mark needs.

“You’re betas,” he says.

Johnny and Winwin exchange amused glances. “Yes,” agrees Winwin. “We are.”

Mark rushes on. “What’s that like? I mean, what _was_ it like? I mean, when you presented?”

“Oh man.” Johnny chuckles and shakes his head. “Presenting as a beta ain’t exactly a walk in the park. Because, like, you get hit with a double whammy. First you go into heat, and yeah, it might not last as long as an omega’s first heat, but then you immediately go into rut without any break between the two.”

“But it’s a lot more manageable after you present,” Winwin is quick to add.

“Totally.” Johnny nods. “If you’re really good at avoiding others’ cycles, you might never go into rut or heat again.”

That’s the thing about being a beta. While they don’t have regular mating cycles, they’re sensitive to pheromones and can be triggered by an alpha’s rut or omega’s heat. It’s the reason why the betas in their pack tend to room with each other, and why the second 127 dorm is exclusively betas: Taeil and Winwin in one room, and Johnny and Jaehyun in the other.

Mark thinks about Jungwoo said about getting knotted, _It’s like the best sex ever. Way more satisfying than when you’re not in heat_ , and asks, “Do you not enjoy being in heat? Or rutting?”

“I enjoy it a lot more now that I’m part of a pack and now that I’ll always have someone I care about to keep me company through it,” answers Johnny, and Mark remembers how Johnny had presented in 2011, before he’d met anyone else in their group, and even after that, it had been another five years before Johnny had been able to join the pack.

“Sometimes I envy alphas and omegas for having cycles,” Winwin says, “because they can keep track of it after they present, and always know just about when it’s coming. Being a beta means that you have to be careful, because no one really wants to get surprised by a sudden heat or rut.”

“But everyone in the pack is really good about helping out when that happens,” adds Johnny.

Winwin nods in agreement. “I spent my first heat with Yuta,” he tells Mark. “Then when it broke into a rut, Ten took care of me. They were both very attentive and sweet.”

It’s easy for Mark to imagine how good Yuta and Ten would be at walking someone through the overwhelming new experience of going through a heat or rut for the first time. After his conversation with Yuta, he knows better than to ask someone if they’ll help him through his first rut or heat depending on how he presents. Still, he thinks that Johnny would be a very safe choice. After all, he knows that the beta was the one to stay with Taeyong when the leader first presented as an alpha.

As if he can read his mind, Johnny reaches over to squeeze his shoulder. “You shouldn’t stress about it. No matter what you present as, anyone in the pack would be happy to help you when it happens.”

* * *

The moment Mark wakes up, he can tell something is different.

His whole body itches, and it _hurts_.

He thrashes around in his bed but nothing seems to soothe him, and when a pained noise escapes his throat, Yuta is at his side in an instant. Mark reaches for his roommate’s hands, but the moment they touch, the itching feeling in his body gets worse, and he pulls alway quickly. “Hyung, what’s wrong with me?” he asks, voice ragged and raw.

A quick sniff tells Yuta all he needs to know. “Nothing’s wrong with you,” he says. “You’re finally presenting.”

Mark squirms. The entirety of his body feels unsettled, yearning for something that he can’t quite put a name to. _This is what I’ve been waiting anxiously for?_ It’s an awful sensation. “How do I make it better?” he asks wildly. “What do I do? Is this heat?”

“No, you’re rutting. That’s why you don’t want to touch me right now,” Yuta tells him with a small smile. “Congratulations. You’re an alpha.”

An alpha. Mark shouldn’t be surprised, he knows. How many times has he heard Taeyong guess that would be how he presents? Too many to count. But still, a part of him is bewildered by it. After all, he’s never considered himself to be all that dominant.

“Is there anyone you want me to call?” asks Yuta.

Mark’s head spins. Mentally, he goes through his options. Doyoung would take excellent care of him, he’s sure of it. Or any of the older betas—he’d be in good hands with Taeil or Johnny, Jaehyun or Winwin. His mind goes to Ten, who he knows is off-limits because of Kun, but maybe one of the other WayV members? Xiaojun is an omega too, after all. _He’d help me, wouldn’t he?_ thinks Mark desperately.

But then something new catches his attention: the sound of light footsteps outside the door and some faint sweet scent. Mark has never smelled it before, but somehow he recognizes it immediately, and he just _knows_.

“Please,” he begs Yuta. “Can you get Jungwoo?”

**Author's Note:**

> Presentations revealed in this fic: Mark, Haechan, and Kun are alphas while Jungwoo and Xiaojun are omegas. (Taeyong and Yuta are also alphas; Taeil, Johnny, Jaehyun, and Winwin are betas; and Doyoung and Ten are omegas, but you already knew that if you read [Lead](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27899764/chapters/68319259).)
> 
> I have a few different stories for this series in the works right now, including one about when Jeno and Jaemin present, a pre-debut fic focused on Jaehyun, and a smutty oneshot about Taeyong and a surprise partner. Let me know in the comments if there’s one that you want to see first, if any of the pairings mentioned in this story (kunten, luwoo, etc.) are something you wanna see more of / get the background on, or if you have any other pairing requests for this AU!


End file.
